Alabama running back Joshua Jacobs (25) breaks a long run against Auburn during the Iron Bowl at Bryant Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala. on Saturday November 26, 2016. (Mickey Welsh / Montgomery Advertiser) .

TUSCALOOSA — The first time Alabama’s Henry Ruggs III and Auburn’s Daniel Thomas reconnected this past summer, the main topic of discussion cut Ruggs deep.

As former prep teammates at Robert E. Lee High in Montgomery, which is an hour west of Auburn, last season’s 26-14 loss to the rival Tigers resonated — and continues to — a lot more than with most.

“When we kind of got together, of course he brought up the game and it was a laughing matter,” Ruggs recalled Monday. “Of course, I'm a competitor, and I didn't like that he was talking about it, (mostly because) they won."

Whether the SEC West is on the line or not, whether both teams are vying for a coveted Final Four spot in the College Football Playoff or not, winning or losing in the Iron Bowl series can have rather lasting effects for many of the in-state players, especially when they return to their often-divided hometowns.

“It means a lot. Everybody back home is an Auburn or an Alabama fan. So if we lose like last year, they’re going to make a big deal about it,” Crimson Tide linebacker Lyndell “Mack” Wilson said Tuesday. “They’re going to talk about it all year. (It’s) the same for some of our friends that play at Auburn. It’s definitely a big challenge, and we’re looking forward to competing against each other on Saturday.”

The 83rd Iron Bowl (2:30 p.m. CT) doesn’t come with some of the elevated stakes of its predecessors, with No. 1 Alabama (11-0, 7-0 SEC) having long-since locked up the SEC West title and a bid to next weekend’s SEC Championship Game in Atlanta against East-winner Georgia (10-1, 6-1 SEC). But that doesn’t lessen what the game means when it comes to bragging rights for the next calendar year.

Last season, a group of six Montgomery-area athletes gathered together following the game for a group picture featuring Ruggs, Wilson and then-injured Alabama linebacker Shaun Hamilton, as well as Thomas, defensive lineman Marlon Davidson and former running back Kamryn Pettway for Auburn.

And while there was certainly some back-and-forth ribbing to be had — then and in the ensuing months to come — the Crimson Tide contingent eventually had a bit of a trump card after responding to the Iron Bowl loss to win the program’s 17th national championship despite backing into the College Football Playoff in fourth place.

“Last year, even though they beat us, every time they’d say something, one of us would say that we won the national championship, so it didn’t matter,” Wilson said Tuesday. “It’s something we enjoy. We don’t ever get too sensitive about the situation. They beat us fair and square, so when we talk about the game, I just say things we did wrong and could have done well. It’s nothing to brag about, it’s just something we talk amongst each other about.”

Still, there are in-state players that live and breathe by what happens during the annual Thanksgiving weekend matchup between the cross-state rivals.

“My level of competition always went up when we played Auburn because I’ve been an Alabama fan my whole life,” former Alabama receiver ArDarius Stewart told the Montgomery Advertiser this week. “So just being in those games, and knowing my team needed big moments and big plays, and I had an opportunity to make those just drove me even more in those games. I just wanted to do better in those games than in any other.”

And he did. Stewart came up big with vital touchdowns in each of the only two Iron Bowls he participated in, both Alabama wins, combining for 18 receptions for 208 yards and two touchdowns — a 34-yard strike from Jake Coker in the third quarter of the 29-13 victory in 2015, and the nail-in-the-coffin 38-yard score from Jalen Hurts in the 30-12 win in 2016.

“Man I was on the winning end of most of it, so it felt good going in with that W for that week,” said Stewart, who is a member of the Oakland Raiders scout team in his second year in the NFL. “Auburn was winning for awhile and that’s when I was in high school, and I kept hearing that ‘fear the thumb, fear the finger’ crap (during Auburn’s six-game win streak in the early 2000s), and all that junk made me hate them even more.

“Those bragging rights mean a lot that next day and even going into that next week. It either makes you feel like, ‘I don’t want to go to work,’ or ‘I do want to go into work,’ you know?”

Alabama running back Josh Jacobs (8) is brought down by Auburn defensive lineman Nick Coe (91) during the Iron Bowl on Nov. 25, 2017, in Auburn, Ala.(Photo: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Spor)

Even for those players that might try to stay above the fray and avoid some of the back-and-forth between fans, a loss often opens the proverbial floodgates from hometown friends and family eager to ruffle feathers.

“For me, as a player, I never really cared to talk crap, if you will, to everyone else. But it was always nice when we won because I didn’t have to hear it from everyone else,” said former Alabama center Bradley Bozeman, who is in his first season with the Baltimore Ravens.

Bozeman’s hometown of Roanoke is approximately an hours drive north of Auburn on the eastern edge of the state, meaning the demographics probably lean in favor of the neighboring Tigers.

“If we won, it was good for me just because I didn’t have to hear from everybody,” Bozeman said, “because where I’m from, … it’s 50-50 there, there’s just as many Auburn (fans) as there is Alabama. And it was always nice to not have to hear all that.”

View of the line of scrimmage during the Iron Bowl between Auburn and Alabama on Nov. 25, 2017, in Auburn, Ala.(Photo: Wade Rackley/AU Athletics)